fill the void

Posts from December 2009

Creating a Menu Bar Item

On my MacBook Pro, I have a lot of items in the menu bar: Tweetie, LittleSnapper, Jing, Evernote, BusySync, MobileMe, along with the standard set. Recently, when I needed to make my own, I started wondering what they are. Actual apps or app components? Activity Monitor confirmed that most are separate applications, although Tweetie’s is [...]


You are a user

Recently, I got an email from Skype saying they activated my Skype To Go number. It was early in the morning, and I hadn’t finished my coffee. I already had a vague discomfort with Skype over their switch from SkypeIn/Skype Pro plans to US/Country/World plans. Skimming the email, I quickly jumped to the conclusion that [...]


UITabBarController from a XIB

There are many good iPhone tutorials on creating a UITabBarController directly through code (a more complex implementation) or from the main XIB. However, I want to separate out the UITabBarController UI elements into a separate XIB and load them dynamically. Most of the code is boilerplate. The key is creating the XIB in Interface Builder [...]


System Preferences Pane Lock

Many panes in System Preferences require I authenticate myself to change settings. Apple has a consistent UI for this: the lock icon. Next to it is a little snippet of text telling me why it’s useful: “Click the lock to make changes.” I click it and authenticate, and it opens, enabling various buttons and fields [...]